The Temporally Complicated Tyler-Noble Family
by Leca B
Summary: He figured, time machine. Different universe and a human lifespan, but still. Time machine. He was bound to have a couple mishaps like that along the way. A harmless little paradox wasn't so bad. He just hadn't known at the time how many of those there would be.


This is my first time putting a DW fic up, and I don't have a beta, so I would appreciate any pointers anyone wants to give. Plus, I'm Brazilian, trained for American English, so if I fail on the british-isms, I'm sorry.

This is going to be a small series of non-linear encounters in Tentoo's life. Meant to be sweet and a little funny, nothing too serious. Hope you all like it.

Disclaimer: Doctor Who is not my property in any way, shape or form.

* * *

The first time it happened, he hadn't been expecting it at all. He'd been well and truly shocked.

The Doctor had been on Pete's World for little more than three years, living the linear life with his wonderful Rose Tyler. Their baby Tardis was on its final stages of production, just a Dynomorphic Generator away from her first official crash test. Three years stuck on 21st century Earth were taxing on both of them, but they'd made the most of it, traipsing all over the globe and getting in as much trouble as they could run from without a time and space ship waiting at the end of the road. Granted, their most daring feats had been literally in the job description, but they chose to face Torchwood's paycheck as Earth's generous reward for the frankly amazing work they did defending it (off-duty, they liked to thwart Jackie's attempts at getting them hitched, and deliberately skip Sunday dinners, both very dangerous and bold in their own right).

It was a January late afternoon, he'd been mindlessly welding wires to give their baby girl a break on all the preparing she'd been doing by herself for their first trip (she had taken it upon herself to sprout a galley, but she hadn't been having much luck) when Donna Noble had waltzed into his Tardis in all her ginger glory, wearing what you'd expect of June weather, rubbing her arms and cursing him right through the chattering of her teeth.

"Well, that's what I call buying your license! You'd think you'd have learned to fly this thing by now! 'Trust me, Donna', he says, 'Seventh Apalachi Moon, piece of cake!' Ha!" she'd snorted. "Prepaired for a waterpark, what'd I get? Mid-winter London! If I had wanted mid-winter London I would've just bleeding waited for it, like the rest of the planet!" she'd snarked. She had seemed to notice his gobsmacked expression, because her hands had gone to her waist and she'd raised her eyebrows at him. "What are you looking at me like that for, sunshine? Go on, you promised me indoors waterfalls and swimming with pink dolphins."

There was a very good reason why he'd been staring at her like she'd grown another head (on a sidenote, a two-headed Donna would have been a proper nightmare. The sheer level of snark and sass could have led to the world's destruction. He couldn't help but think if that was one of the ways the metracrisis could have gone wrong and his horror is such he blocks the thought immediately).

The thing was, the Donna Noble from his original universe, a hundred words per minute, best temp in all of England and best friend to a mad man in a blue box had indeed traveled with him. Pete's World Donna, however, had been hired as part of Torchwood's HR department (the irony was not lost on him) barely three months ago, and although they'd had a laugh or two about a couple of the most pompous department heads and occasionally shared a table at a board meeting, they had yet to rekindle their friendship (well, rekindle on his part, on hers… Uh… Kindle?) Pete's World Donna Noble hadn't gone to the cafeteria with Rose and him, much less the Seventh Apalachi Moon.

He'd been about to point out she wasn't even supposed to know where he lived, and most certainly not about his growing a time machine, when the Tardis' doors opened suddenly, and Rose's head popped inside through the gap. She didn't look very different than what she did for him, but her hair was a bit longer and she sported a tan she couldn't have gotten anywhere North of the equator in January. She looked hesitant and a little sheepish.

"Uh, Donna, can I talk to you outside for a bit?" she'd asked.

"What are you doing over there? I thought you were going to help himself with the whatsit regulator. 'Sides, it's freezing out there!"

"It's okay, we fixed it. She's all ready to go. Just… Step outside for a minute. I need to talk to you. It's very important." Rose insisted.

"And you can't say in front of him?" Donna had pointed at the Doctor, still sitting on the floor, sonic screwdriver in hand, wires littering his lap, mouth hanging open.

"Uh… I'd rather not. It's, um, sort of a surprise?" she's said uncertainly. It sounded like an excuse even to his currently inept brain, but Donna had rolled her eyes and given in.

"If you're finally leaving him after all the years of alien-ness and bad driving, let me just remind you I was Best Maid for Spaceman, so I'm gonna have to take his side in court."

He'd just sat there and watched his, apparently reinstated, best friend walk down the ramp and out the door. Rose stepped back to let her through and sent him an apologetic look.

"Sorry about that, bit of a case of misplaced spaceship. You know how it is. Pretend it never happened!" she'd grinned at him and made to leave, but snapped her fingers like she'd suddenly remembered something and flipped on her heels. "By the way, what you really need right now is a Lariat 's one at Torchwood disguised as a telepathy dampener ring. Love you!" she sent him one last beaming smile and popped right out, closing the door.

Which didn't muffle Donna's indignant "WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'WRONG TARDIS'?" five minutes later.

He knew he should have been more worried about that meeting, it was never good to know things about your future and he'd learned three things with Donna's mistake. One, they were going to be friends again, which was great; two, his baby girl would be up and running in his lifetime, which he'd been quite sure of, but nice to have confirmed all the same; and third, and perhaps more important, Rose hadn't left him yet.

He was pretty certain he could still suppress memories in this new human-ish body, but turned out he did need those Lariat crystals to jumpstart the Tardis' Atmospheric Immunity Control system, so he'd push that little encounter to the back of his mind and not think about it anymore. A little paradox never killed anybody.

Except, you know, that time it did.

Either way, he figured, time machine. Different universe and a human lifespan, but still. Time machine. He was bound to have a couple small mishaps like that along the way.

He didn't know how right he was.


End file.
